Explosion reported in China’s volatile Xinjiang

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese state media has reported an explosion near a public park in the capital of the volatile northwestern region of Xinjiang that has seen a number of recent violent attacks.

The official Xinhua News Agency gave no other details about the reported blast in the city of Urumqi and it wasn’t known if there were any casualties. A spokeswoman for the Xinjiang regional police department would only say that more information would be forthcoming.

Urumqi was the scene of a railway station bomb attack late last month that killed three people, including two attackers, and injured 79. The attack and other violence have been blamed on radicals from among the region’s native Turkic Uighur Muslim population seeking to overthrow Chinese rule in the region.